LOS

The South Bay city joins Pasadena, San Francisco, and Oakland in moving away from a focus on vehicle delay and towards induced car trips to measure of environmental impacts of development.

Yesterday the California Office of Planning and Research released a comprehensive update to CEQA. It marks a milestone in efforts to align transportation performance metrics with community values

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in the quest for free-flowing vehicular traffic. The result is wider highways, more sprawl, and more people stuck in congestion. But this week U.S. DOT took an important step to change course, releasing new standards to guide how transportation agencies measure their performance. Advocates for transit and walkability say the policy is a significant improvement.

SCAG sent a last-minute letter attempting to delay progressive updates to California's outdated environmental standards.

Late last week, the San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously adopted a resolution to replace "Level of Service" (LOS) with "Vehicle Miles Traveled" (VMT). That's bureaucratese for measuring a project's overall effect on moving people, instead of just counting automobiles. As explained in a previous post, environmental law has long forced transportation planners to grade projects by how they impact traffic flow. "This will streamline California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for projects that are designed to encourage public transit, promote pedestrian safety and help reduce the need for traveling long distances by car," said John Rahaim, Director of San Francisco Planning, in an official release. "We are pleased to be the first city in California to adopt these new guidelines."

The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) recently issued long-anticipated changes to a provision in California law that currently ranks traffic congestion as an environmental impact. For more details, see recent Streetsblog coverage here. The new guidelines are under a 45-day review period, with public comment being accepted until February 29.

After several years of work, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) is almost ready to release draft guidelines on replacing vehicle Level of Service measures under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The shift was called for by Senate Bill 743, which passed late in the 2013 legislative session.

San Francisco agencies have re-introduced the Transportation Sustainability Program, a bureaucratic overhaul that could dramatically expedite improvements for walking, biking, and transit, while discouraging car parking in new developments.

Buried in a five-hour long meeting of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee yesterday, a short discussion ended in a vote to move legislation that will delay the state's shift away from car-centric planning.